Heresy
by HanaKoryuo
Summary: Children were often scared of animals at a very young age and eventually they would overcome said fear simply through experience. Even so, as long as Near's mind rejected that feeling of dread as defence mechanism, Roger didn't know how long it would take him to defeat the fear. An eventual worsening situation needed immediate precautions before it hindered his pupil's path.


**Nd**

This must be the end of the world, I wrote an entire fic with Near as main character- A very craccky and fluffy fic for my dear Namichin/Akicchi, who's bearing with my renewed obsession with Death Note and all the screenshots and trash messages about the drama and plots for fics. Hope you like it :D

**Heresy**

The Wammy's House rules didn't prohibit keeping animals. In fact it had been already the new home for furred orphans as Cindy's hamster and the bowl of golden fishes Klaus was holding tight when he was found sitting between the ruins of his house set ablaze. Sometimes stray cats were found wandering by the facility's gates and occasionally the children were allowed to feed them and pet their fur. A glimmer of true happiness brightened their faces when the felines accepted the food offered by shy fingers and gently licked at the tips, purring in delight; it was always a nice break from lessons and the hard training for those gifted minds entered in the successor program.  
Near, who rarely joined the others in the garden, usually observed them at a safe distance and never let one of those animals to get close to him. Even when an old acquaintance of Roger showed up with a small dog, who immediately gained squeaks from the other children, he backed up to his room and locked himself until the dog and his owner were gone. Roger noticed the hint of a frightened look twisting the child's features, but when he dared ask him if he was scared of dogs, Near denied it with a brief shake of the head.  
His composed figure, swaying a little in the oversized white pyjamas, kept putting together the puzzle pieces scattered all over the floor. "I don't understand animals." He muttered unperturbed when the same episode happened again. They were all sitting in the garden in circle around Cindy, whose arms were stretched forward to let the other children watch at the hamster eating a sunflower seed in her hands. All of a sudden the hamster stood on its hind limbs, the little nose twitching with cheeks puffed up, and it begun to climb Cindy's arms at a high speed oblivious to be the show of several curious eyes. Near, sat few inches away from the circle, rose abruptly on his feet with eyes open wide and even dropped his favourite robot on the grass when he rushed back to the house.  
Few hours later, watching at the boy who among everyone stood as the perfect successor to the role of L, Roger genuinely believed Near's rational mind was afraid of unpredictable behaviours -like a puppy licking your face and jumping all around just to manifest a pure sense of joy, or a cat hissing when tired of being pampered by demanding kids. It would explain the child's odd demeanour, at least.  
Children were often scared of animals at a very young age and eventually they would overcome said fear simply through experience. Even so, as long as Near's mind rejected that feeling of dread as defence mechanism, Roger didn't know how long it would take him to defeat the fear.  
An eventual worsening situation needed immediate precautions before it hindered his pupil's path.

_A little shock treatment would be of help or so the man hoped._

The boy was in his room as usual, crouched on the floor over a puzzle he kept doing and undoing since the early afternoon. Lithe fingers grazed at one piece, uncaring of Roger opening the door just a crack - he used to check on him often so Near didn't care. His curly white hair didn't look at the door when it closed and he kept playing with a strand as if nothing happened.  
Unaware of the small figure peeking at the door, Near mechanically picked up another puzzle piece and placed it in the right spot without a batting of eyelids. When his hand moved towards another scattered piece, his fingers startled mid-air when encountering a furred object that wasn't absolutely there before. Near slowly lifted his eyes and the hand usually curling his hair froze in the action. Unblinking, the boy observed the little white cat sniffing the puzzle piece between its paws, deciding it wasn't interesting enough and moving towards Near's bed. The feline looked up, measuring the height and swinging a little on its hind paws. Few seconds later it jumped, but its paws slid down the covers, tried to clutch at them but comically fell on its butt with a strangled mewl. Someone would laugh and encouraged the cat to try again with a light pat between those perfect triangular ears, but Near's lips were stretched in a rather thin line and his body had went as rigid as a dead. Grey eyes open wide, he observed the cat rubbing against the cover, one paw slightly lifting the hem as if it spotted something beneath. One of Near's robots laid in fact under the bed, indeed the albino boy knew it was Mello who hid his toys sometimes -as if he wasn't smarter enough to find out all the hidey-holes in less than an hour.  
Cornered in his own room with the back to the walls and the door seventeen little squared tiles ahead and nine to the left, Near considered his options while the cat kept wandering in front of him, sniffing everything he bumped into like a little predator.  
During the spy lessons they learnt everything needed if a case required to be forced into situations that weren't safest (the teacher called them "the danger zone"), could have consequences and be definitely filled with the mystery of unknown. _The number one objective of a spy is to blend in_, Near recollected, but unfortunately he was trapped in an empty room as informal as his white attire. Unless he blended in with his surroundings, holding his breath and feigning to be an inanimate object as the table at his right. Cats were rather curious animals but got bored easily; so if the feline didn't find him interesting he would focus on something else, letting Near enough time to cover the distance from the wall to the door and sneak out.  
The plan sounded perfect if suddenly something picked his interested. There was something off in the cat, but Near didn't understand what it was until the feline approached him again and slightly stretched before his eyes. A small brown spot stained the immaculate white fur, just right between the ears. The boy couldn't tell if it was mud or something else at a first glance, but the mere thought of that little dot dirtying that beautiful white stirred a chord and an unexpected courageous action blew up. Still holding his breath, he stretched one hand towards the cat and let a trembling finger to brush over the spot. The cat immediately leaned in the touch, purring softly as it brushed its head along Near's digit. The boy froze for just a moment, inhaled sharply and focused only on the action to rub that horrendous stain off the fur. It didn't work at all, the stain was still there, unblinkingly staring at him as the inner workings of Near's mind tried to solve the problem.  
He'd read in a book that cats didn't like water and they needed specific lotions in case; no cats were in the history of the Wammy House so Near excluded the possibility to find the products locked somewhere in the bathroom. He could use a patch, there was a package just in the first drawer of his nightstand, but the cat would surely claw at it and eventually hurt itself. He didn't have caps of a cat's head size, so, again, he was option-less.  
"You..." He looked down at the cat, who was now purring against his leg, demanding attention. Near dared to scratch at the stain again, but in the end his hand surrendered at the pleading mewl and softly petted the cat. Once. Once was enough for that... "_Heresy_. You're an heresy."

Mello startled in a daze when Near showed up in his room, scooping a cat in his arms and asking him how to wash away the stain on the cat's fur. Of course that brown spot was part of the natural colour of the fur and surely Near was aware of it (_c'mon, wasn't he the damn fucking smarter one between the two of them?!_), but it somehow irked the albino boy. The scorn in Near's eyes made Mello grin and he simply pushed the boy again in the corridor, towards the kitchen. "Your cat must be angry, then we figure out what to do with it, 'kay?"

Later that evening, Roger found Mello and Near sat across the kitchen floor with an unexpected guest. The two boys were arguing over something, indeed, Mello was the one yelling something about whitener lotions while Near watched intensely the small cat lapping the milk from a bowl. From time to time his small hand caressed the soft fur and the cat tail moved up and down, tickling his arm. He found out the cat was a she, it'd been easy to figure out since Matt once explained him how to recognize the gender of mammal animals.  
"Can we keep Heresy, Roger?" Near lifted his head when the man asked for explanation. It seemed his experiment was successful but a little voice warned him everything didn't go as planned.  
"Heresy?" He arched a brow, letting his stare wandering from Near to Mello to the cat.  
"The cat's name." Mello responded, munching on a chocolate bar. "What a stupid name."  
_It suits her_, Near didn't stand that spot but the cat seemed friendly after all and it was too late and too dark to kick her out. She deserved a home like everyone in the Wammy House, didn't she? He also planned to solve the stain's problem.  
"Of course."  
Roger nodded in agreement, quietly observing the cat straddling in Near's lap and the way the boy's face softened a little, shyly scratching her between the ears.  
_Heresy... whoever calls a cat like that?!_


End file.
